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LETTER: Efforts needed to deal with natural disasters

Federal government should spend money on search and rescue efforts
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Dear Editor:

I’ve said it before, but obviously it needs saying again.

Our province, as well as the federal government in Ottawa needs to concentrate resources on people and equipment to handle the bad stuff coming our way by an angry and irritated Mother Nature.

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Search and Rescue with its helicopters and trained personnel have been heavily used in recent years in the Lower Mainland, but we need our own in the Okanagan, in the Kootenays, Kamloops, Prince George and Prince Rupert.

The federal government needs to train its military for search and rescue as well as fighting fires. The money it plans to spend on fighter jets should instead go to helicopters, air tankers, spotter planes and fast rescue boats.

Provincially we should be spending more money on forestry technologists who can save us from the logging companies directly responsible for the mud slides because of over-logging on steep and susceptible areas prone to slides. The continued decimation of the forest ministry must stop.

Where are all of the 1,500 faculty of forestry students at University of British Columbia going? They certainly don’t seem to be employed here in B.C.

Have you ever heard of MLA Katrine Conroy? How often has she appeared in the news? She’s the minister responsible for our forests.

As with a lot of challenges we are facing now with climate change we need to put pressure on our governments to quit supporting heavy spending on our military and devote more on helping its own taxpaying citizens.

Frank Martens

Summerland

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